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TOPIC: russian authoritarianism

Geopolitics

Why Did Modern Russia Turn Into An Authoritarian State: Was It Putin Or The People?

It is a mistake to attribute the construction of authoritarianism in modern Russia to Putin alone. Serhiy Gromenko, an expert at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, explains the evolution for how Russia wound up an authoritarian state, and why Putin isn't the only one to blame.

-Analysis-

Not so long ago, the republic of Russia was among the freest of the Soviet Union's 15 republics. Apart from the always separate Baltic states, Russia in the late 1980s was home to the most potent dissident movements, and the fiercest struggle between progressives and those more aligned with the Soviet Union.

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The largest and most critical anti-Soviet rallies and mass protests took place on the streets of Moscow. Paradoxically, Russians enjoyed the greatest freedom of thought and relatively moderate pressure from the KGB. "For what they cut your nails in Moscow, they cut off your hand in Kyiv" was a common expression at the time.

Interestingly, for some time after the final collapse of the USSR, it was Russia that led the decommunization movement, with the banning of the Communist party, renaming of cities and opening of secret archives. The Kremlin has officially recognized the existence of secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (the non-aggression agreement between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed just before the Second World War) and the Soviet Union's guilt in the murder of tens of thousands of Polish prisoners of war during the Katyn massacre.

Political life in Russia was booming and raging, often literally. An unprecedented level of political competition, genuine federalism and assets inherited from the USSR, as well as positions in the world all played in Moscow's favor. Perhaps not the wealthiest country, but still a respected and promising country, with a high level of freedom — this is how it was seen from the outside and inside.

It is strange to see today's Russia — rigidly authoritarian, hostile to the whole world, with rapid degradation of almost all spheres of life. And on top of that, Orthodox-Communist-Nazi rhetoric comes from the mouths of the highest leadership.

As early as 1992, former U.S. President Richard Nixon and leading Soviet expert Richard Pipes warned about the danger of restoring dictatorship in Russia. In 1995, the emigrant historian Alexander Yanov wrote a book called Weimar Russia, which predicted the return of authoritarianism. So when did these prophecies come true?

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